Poultry Bosses Benefit from Trump’s Threats
Poultry workers struck at a Tyson plant in Arkansas last year. Employers exploit the terror of deportation to undermine organizing and get away with ever-more-dangerous line speeds. Photo: Venceremos
Even before he takes office, the Trump victory has given more power to poultry corporations. They’re using the political environment to intimidate workers. I’ve been organizing with poultry processing workers in Arkansas for 10 years, and I see a high risk that the (already awful) working conditions will get worse.
In some small plants, fewer than half the workers are documented. More than half are hired through a contractor who brings in undocumented people. They don’t get the same benefits, like holidays and overtime pay, and they’re paid less while enduring the same risks.
As corporations struggle to find workers, we’re seeing an increase in child labor and even human trafficking using H-2A and H-2B visas. Just recently we helped a case of four trafficking survivors in a turkey plant in Huntsville, Arkansas. The case is still under investigation by the FBI and other agencies.
TRAPPED IN A JOB
The workers say they were hired through a sourcing company from Guatemala to work for a construction company in Chicago under an H-2B visa. When they arrived, they were told the job was no longer available, and sent to work in the Arkansas poultry plant instead. Those visas aren’t supposed to be used for that type of job.
During Trump’s last term he massively increased these “guest worker” programs, where your visa is tied to your job. The programs are characterized by rampant abuse. If workers try to organize, employers threaten that they will lose their visas and be sent home.
If they expand temporary visas to the meat processing industry, as Trump tried to do before, the results would be catastrophic. We’ve already seen thousands of cases where the human rights of farmworkers are abused under guest worker programs: those who speak up are retaliated against. It’s modern-day slavery—they need more vulnerable workers because working conditions are getting worse every day.
SUPPORT LABOR NOTES
BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR
Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt.
We’re also concerned that the Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement (DALE) program may disappear. This program allows workers to file for temporary visas if their employer violates their rights, whether through wage theft, safety violations, discrimination, or punishment for collective action.
The program had a low profile during the Biden administration—they didn’t do much to make it accessible or encourage workers to file claims. However, it’s an important tool to empower the workforce, since the climate of fear makes organizing undocumented workers extremely difficult. We need to fight to keep DALE and make it stronger.
TERROR IS THE POINT
People have asked me whether we expect massive raids of the plants, where many people are arrested and deported. Trump threatened the same thing last time, but we didn’t see raids in Arkansas because the poultry industry has a lot of power in the state, and the companies are eager for vulnerable workers. We only saw one raid in a processing plant in Mississippi.
However, it’s not just about deportations. I’ve heard directly from workers that supervisors in some poultry plants are already beginning to use this political environment to spread the word that they’re not going to give bathroom breaks to Hispanic workers, only white workers; they’re getting more racist towards immigrants. This makes it a more hostile environment to organize, since workers are divided against each other.
The more that people are afraid to organize, the more the bosses will take advantage to create worse working conditions. I expect they will be pushing people to work faster—increasing the health and safety risks, and further violating workers’ rights and dignity.
Magaly Licolli is director of Venceremos, an organization of poultry workers, and a Labor Notes board member.
